Based in Chicago, multi-instrumentalist and composer Derrick Stembridge has taken a step back in time with Facewithin. It sounds like Depeche Mode must have been a big influence on his formative musical years, such is the way he uses rhythm and darker synths to create these 6 tracks (plus 3 remixes).

Twinkling melodies hang in the air over industrial tinged rhythms in ‘Misunderstood’, while the not dissimilar title track adds some distorted android vocals and dials up the murky acid beats that Leftfield turned to on their Rhythm & Stealth album a decade ago. The synth washes and subtle techno hints show a composer bringing together the favourite parts of his record collection.

Stembridge does a nice job on ‘Coming Up For Air’, with its stuttering bass synth and Field-like sweeping synthetic strings. He shows a soundtrack approach to the emotions and mood in his songs and in ‘Virus’ he adds some effect-laden guitar and more Underworld robo-voice, generating some nice rise and fall moments.

‘Facewithin’ is the strongest track on the EP, hence its reworking via 3 remixes. The Drev Remix filters the song through a digital blender, separating and scattering the bytes across the speakers. It resembles digital spray and amps up the industrial aspect of ‘Drifting In Silence’, veering toward Nine Inch Nails territory. The Her Odd First Remix doesn’t head down any new paths but paints it with a 70s analog brush and goes all Kraftwerk on us. The final Anthony Baldino Remix serves up some tasty deconstructed dubstep with razor sharp sliced notes skittering in all directions. The rave buildup mid track works brilliantly, holding everything mile high before rapidly losing altitude back into the blips and beeps.

Facewithin is a good mix of old and new electronica styles, nicely woven together in a fairly dark setting. Fans of Photek, Cabaret Voltaire and Underworld will all find something to appreciate on this solid release.

— Chris Familton

Link to review

Once again, I give my recommendation to listen to this music wearing headphones, or anywhere acoustically ideal where you can be drenched and surrounded by sound, such as a long drive home in the car, or a ride on your public transportation of choice.  This ambient music, driven by funk and industrial rhythms, deserves active listening, or at least a dance floor setting where the audience is paying fairly close attention to the music.  If you like deep trance, drum and bass, and other similar genres, and artists such as Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, and Aphex Twin, Facewithin will fit in nicely to your DJ queue.  The album has 5 tracks with 3 remixes of the title track, so it’s clearly meant to be danced to, as well as a means of sonic escape from the world outside.  Overall, the album has a somewhat mellow feel, but there are regular upbeat tempos to get you in the groove.

longthenight is a side project by Stembridge, and a self-titled album was released March 31st.  I would say this material has more of a New Age feel, with acoustic piano solos and guitar riffs set to warm electronic sounds.  It was recorded during the same session that Facewithin was, which I would say is pretty demonstrative of Stembridge’s ability to explore a wide musical range.  longwithin might not appeal to all of the same audience that Drifting in Silence does, but it follows the musical tradition of greats such as Brian Eno, Vangelis, Harold Budd, and Tangerine Dream.  The music is definitely more contemplative and has a very meditative quality to it.

Both albums are on the Labile Records label and physical CDs can be purchased from their website here (Facewithin) and here (longthenight).  Music can also be purchased online through iTunes.

Link to Review

Who? Drifting In Silence are the brainchild of composer/multi-instrumentalist Derrick Stembridge.

Sounds Like? Facewithin mixes together several genres of electronic music, but mostly it draws from ambient and industrial. Stembridge’s tunes are rich with texture, giving his intricate soundscapse tons of delpth.

How is it? It’s good. Fans of The Saint soundtrack will totally dig this.

ROCKS LIKE: FLUKE, APHEX TWIN, ORBITAL

ALTERNATIVE PRESS: Facewithin Review June 2009

http://digitalnimbus.com/playlists/dn_playlist.php?ShowID=323 (( playlist ))
http://digitalnimbus.net/archive/april_2009/dn_323.m3u (( stream ))
http://digitalnimbus.net/archive/april_2009/dn_323.mp3 (( download ))

Link to radio show

Thankfully, Facewithin is true to its aura-crafting purposes, laying off the tired crutches of clubbing music in favor of new age theater. For what it is and what it aims to do, Facewithin is undoubtedly a success, despite its tendency to stand more as a testament to Stembridge’s talent than any sort of united vision.

Then again, the latter point is somewhat of a relief: though Facewithin often strives to be a concept album, its overall effect is nowhere as ham-handed. There are no numbered pieces or character narratives, nor some sort of dystopian metaphor beneath all the musical current. Facewithin is instead scattershot: it spreads it tentacles in different directions, preferring gray and airy sounds paired with driving percussion as substitution for recurring melodies. It is thus freer than the music of, say, Outputmessage or Mint Royale, who rely on pop strategies to deliver their electronic bliss.

It is a credit to Stembridge, then, that Facewithin remains engaging despite the noticeable lack of melodic coherence. Dealing in a palette of razor tones and other crisp sounds, one would think that Drifting in Silence could never achieve the sonic glory that bursts forth from fellow instrumentalists like Explosions in the Sky, with their bell-like guitarwork and climbing melodies. Yet the musical handicap never truly cripples Facewithin, with pieces such as Coming Up For Air and Misunderstood managing to escape the bittersweet designation of good driving music.

In reality, Facewithin’s greatest weakness is its brevity – consisting of five original tracks and three remixes, many listeners may wish for Stembridge to take a breath and expand beyond the rather quick half-hour running time. The cinematic flair is therefore a tad clipped, though it does nothing to drown Stembridge’s other talents. For a self-described symphonic project, Drifting in Silence remains unnaturally disciplined and rarely contrived – a welcome, if unexpected, pleasure.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Link to review

I love when music can inspire creativity, and listening to Facewithin will do that.  I can’t help but picture the scenes that go along with the tracks, making the album a full experience instead of just songs.

Facewithin will be released by Labile Records in April, and until then you can read more about Drifting in Silence on the band’s MySpace page here: www.myspace.com/driftinginsilence

Or on the Drifting in Silence website here: Drifting in Silence

Link to review

‘shimmering ambience’s driven by groove rhythms and punctuated by instrumental riffs and snatches of concrete sounds’.

Now keep that thought in mind.

Second full length from Derrick Stembridge (for it is he who is Drifting in Silence) following his debuting 2007 opus ‘Chameleon’ which incidentally we disappointingly missed here. And we here are not kidding when we note our disappointment because if this 5 track set (with an additional three guest remixes) is anything to judge by then it seems we missed out on a treat.

Based in Chicago, Drifting in Silence does indeed sculpture a compelling dream weaving ambient canvas and ’face within’ is indeed by our reckoning a release best enjoyed and savoured alone plugged into a set of headphones, the volume racked to maximum and with eyes closed so that you can view those strangely dissipating shapes that form behind the eyelids and imagine them as cosmically strewn night lights illuminating celestial voids with the sounds piping into your psyche acting as a colourfully vivid backdrop for the flight in hand.

If there’s any complaint to be made about this set its just a small one because I won’t bother having you believe that Mr Stembridge pushes the ambient envelope in any given direction because – he doesn’t.

Instead this brand of dark ambience is tweaked and twisted upon a framing of mid 80’s euro disko accents (the opening salvo ‘forever’ lending itself to detectable elements of Front 242) and industrial dialects all abridged and set upon a gothically grand wide screen mounting. Mood wise its all at once dreamy and detached, at times bleakly beautifully at others clinically sparse and ominously sterile, amid the star crossed liquid like loosely connected techno textures leviathan like swathes swirl and weave almost as though navigating some given deep space trajectory (especially on the lonesome motorik beat laced epically tear stained and frosted overtures of the stately and orbiting ‘coming up for air’). It’s a consuming and compulsive listening experience the reference markers pointing in the general location of the likes of Plaid, FSOL and Apollo 440 while the appearance of the apocalyptic touches throughout hark back to a familiar landscape carved by Gary Numan’s darkly manifesting ’Pure’ set especially on the title track – its something that’s brought into sharper perspective by the ‘her odd fist’ remix of ‘face within’. ‘coming up for air’. That said ‘virus’ momentarily breaks itself free of the shackles and for awhile could – if that is our ears do not deceive – pass for the more reflective moments from Porcupine Tree’s ‘stupid dream’ set gorgeously braided as it is with parched acoustic pickings and the hollowed sound of hazy vocals piercing through the ether.

As said three additional remixes of ‘face within’ bolster the set, the previously mentioned ‘her odd fist’ along with the ‘drev remix’ and the ‘Anthony Baldino remix – amid the haze of over loading communicative traffic the former applies a spot of groove space tweaking face lifting to his re-engineering imparting a sumptuously vibrant wall of crystalline celestially tipped effervescent turbulence to the proceedings while Mr Baldino for his part supplants a hitherto to more minimalist and monochrome viewpoint, much reminiscent of a crooked latter career dark hearted Orbital the intricately busy and haunting swathes are eked out to form a curious though attractive dislocated techno funk matrix. Recommended listening. www.labilerecords.com
Key tracks – ‘Virus’, ’Coming up for air‘.

Link to review